BY JIM HALL
Backers of three proposed cancer treatment centers for the region will probably have to wait until next year for the state's decision.
Dr. Karen Remley, the state health commissioner, has until Jan. 30 to make a decision on the projects. Her ruling could be delayed an additional 25 days if she needs more time.
MediCorp Health System, HCA Inc. and Culpeper Regional Hospital want to spend a combined $25 million to build cancer centers and purchase linear accelerators and other specialty equipment.
All three centers received endorsements from a regional health planning group in Culpeper in August. Since then, however, two of them have run into opposition.
A state Health Department analyst last month recommended that the MediCorp and HCA projects be denied, calling them "unnecessary expenditures on unneeded services."
And Dr. Christopher Walsh, the medical director at the Mid-Rivers Cancer Center in Montross, told the state that he fears that the MediCorp and HCA projects will draw patients from King George and Essex counties and hurt his 3-year-old center.
"We operate on a very slim margin," Walsh said yesterday. "We're probably the least busy of all the centers. We would be the most vulnerable to the loss of the referral base."
MediCorp, HCA and Culpeper seek state permits, called "certificates of public need," to build the centers.
MediCorp wants to place its center at its new Stafford Hospital Center on U.S. 1.
HCA would build its center at the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, its planned hospital near Massaponax.
The Culpeper center would be located adjacent to the hospital.
Leonard Varmette, the state analyst, recommended to Remley that she approve the Culpeper project, since the Culpeper area has no radiation therapy centers. Cancer patients there must travel at least an hour for their treatments.
But Varmette said patients in the Fredericksburg area can receive treatments at the Cancer Center of Virginia, a MediCorp facility on State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County.
That center has two linear accelerators, machines that deliver measured doses of radiation to cancerous tumors. Each accelerator did 7,054 treatments last year, according to Varmette's report.
That number is almost identical to the number of treatments done there in 2006. And it's below the minimum of 8,000 treatments per year that the state wants to see before approving a new accelerator.
The "purported need" for new linear accelerators in Spotsylvania and Stafford is "specious and unfounded," Varmette concluded.
Officials from MediCorp and HCA argue that their projects are needed because of the region's growth and its higher-than-average age-adjusted cancer incidence rates.
Fred Rankin, president and chief executive officer of MediCorp, said yesterday that another key issue is access by residents of Stafford to the Cancer Center of Virginia in Spotsylvania.
"We think we proved during the Stafford hospital project that access from the northern parts of our market is difficult even at the best of times, and in the worst of times virtually impossible," Rankin said.
Mark Foust, spokesman for HCA, said many cancer patients leave the area for radiation treatments. A center at its new Spotsylvania hospital would give them a choice and would allow for continuity of care, he said.
"They should have the option of having the service close to home," Foust said.
Douglas Harris, an adjudication officer for the Health Department, held a hearing on the HCA and MediCorp applications earlier this month in Richmond. The two companies can submit additional written material until early next month. Then they must wait for Remley's decision.
Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com